Sports Extra

Thank you, Tiger Woods, for ending the "Are golfers athletes?" debate. By the way, you lost.

Last week, Woods announced that he would skip this week's Tour Championship, citing mental and physical exhaustion. Um, Tiger, you're a golfer. What mental and physical exhaustion?

True, the Tour Championship isn't a major, but it is one of the top 10 events on the PGA Tour (according to Times-Union golf writer Garry Smits) and because the field is limited to the top 30 golfers, it is somewhat of a prestigious tournament. But even if it was the Podunk Farms Celebrity Putt-Putt Pro-Am, it's pretty audacious of Woods or any other golfer (Phil Mickelson) to claim they're skipping a tournament because of mental and physical exhaustion.

You're playing golf!

It's a non-contact non-sport and they don't even carry their own bags. (This is when golf's defenders bring up all the walking they do. It's walking. If they were sprinting between swings I'd give them the argument, but they're walking. Postmen walk. Dogwalkers walk. It's walking.)

It's an insult to every working man and woman for any golfer to use such an excuse like that.

I'd have a lot more respect for Woods had just come out and said he'd rather spend the weekend on his boat with his former bikini model wife, Elin.

"Shoulder pads are hard and stiff. Your hands are, are tender and they can move and caress the ball. That's kind of gay, but hey, close."

- Brian Kinchen, ESPNU commentator, calling the Northern Illinois-Iowa game Saturday. He was chastising a receiver for dropping a pass. An uncomfortable silence followed Kinchen's statement before play-by-play man Clay Matvick resumed. (During the silence you can almost hear Kinchen thinking, "Uh-oh.")

"One of the teams [Tennessee] that jumped us had the same game that we had. They're down, they're playing at home and they win by a field goal. Another team [Florida] that jumped us wasn't even playing. They were home eating cheeseburgers and they end up jumping us. That befuddles me."

Charlie Weis, Notre Dame coach, on the BCS standings.Yeah, it looks like a homicide

We tend to tread lightly when it comes to legal matters and death, but this is more about ESPN than Trevor Berbick.

When ESPN reported Berbick's death, the ticker said the police were treating the matter as a homicide. Gee, ya think?

We understand not wanting to jump to conclusions, but considering Berbick was found dead with hatchet or machete wounds to the back of his head, it's safe to assume it's not accidental.